I’ve been trying to stay up to date with UK politics with the impending election looming and usually I wouldn’t even wander down the dark alleyways of right wing politics, but seeing as some of my misguided acquaintances have been subjecting me to various UKIP flavored ‘likes’ on my FaceBook feed I thought I’d better find out what all the fuss was about.

As much as there is totally reprehensible about Nigel Farage and UKIP, I feel the real danger to any political gain these stealth Tories might make, comes from their own supporters. All it takes is a quick scroll through the comments on any, and I mean any, post from UKIP on Facebook and it rapidly degenerates into talk of muslims, mosques and ‘that cruel halal muck’. Any hope of not seeming like a bunch a reactionary extremists dissolves faster than Mr. Hands’ bowels.

Take the delightful Dawn Coleman’s reply to a post originally about the armed forces:

Our Dawn certainly has some issues there, but ‘festive lights’? It’s hardly the end of the world is it?

Yup, within 2 pages of comments you tend to see the same hackneyed islamophobic rhetoric. I’m under no illusions that some parts of the UK do have large Muslim communities and some folks are threatened by this; but it’s a question of perspective – yes, the grooming gangs in Rotherham were shocking and they are being punished, but it doesn’t mean that all Muslim men are paedophiles constantly on the look out for white children to rape.

Easy for me to say with my cosy weed smoking middle class atheist lifestyle, but seriously, take a breath and look at the bigger picture; Sharia law will not be taking over the UK, but if you really give a fuck, educate yourself about human rights abuse in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Those degenerates have been chopping heads off when ISIS was only an ancient egyptian goddess, but we tend to turn a blind eye because they are essentially the Western friendly face of Islam, moreover, now aspirational because plenty of folks just love a trip to Dubai – living large in the middle east in a manufactured hell built on slavery. I digress…

I’m all for freedom of speech, but sadly social media gives a voice to many who really should remain mute, especially those who can’t spell check or grasp the concept of online privacy settings.

UKIP supporters seem think they are being branded as racists, it’s like the over used line ‘not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslim’ isn’t it guys? Sometimes on social media things escalate quickly:

Tired of getting called a racist or bigot for flying the St. George’s Flag?

You probably want to blame the far right organisations like the laughable EDL, who co-opted it as symbol of their retarded views, before blaming ‘the PC loony left’ for picking on you poor KIPPER patriots. The association with the far-right was there before Nigel Farage gurned his way though another fag and pint photo op.

I’m sure the vast majority some supporters are just ‘proud patriots’, but many of these idiots don’t understand that the UK in UKIP stands for United Kingdom, not exclusively England.

I even decided to have a proper gander at the UKIP manifesto, after all it’s only fair to be reasonable informed of the facts before railing against them.

Take immigration, the big hot-button issue – the man in the street from UKIP tends to get very confused over policy, with the bulk of the focus around stopping free movement from Europe and lots of talk about ‘The Australian Points System’ and to be fair controlled migration does make sense, but where UKIP loses the plot is it’s refusal to allow multiculturalism with fear mongering bollocks like this:

‘We reject multiculturalism, the doctrine whereby different ethnic and religious groups are encouraged to maintain all aspects of their cultures, instead of integrating into our majority culture, even if some of their values and customs conflict with British ones. We believe multiculturalism has led to an alarming fragmentation of British society.’

A little light relief from Phoenix Nights:

The main reason for UKIPs original existence was to remove the UK from the European Union, but to be honest your average supporter isn’t interested in the Europe issue, even the manifesto gets a bit weird with talk of war and trade in the same sentence:

‘Once unbound from the EU, Britain would once again take her place in the family of nations as an independent, sovereign state, free to negotiate her own trade deals and determine her own foreign policy objectives. We believe nations which trade with one another are less likely to go to war with each other and, it is on this basis, that we would seek to create a more global Britain, fully able to pursue her own interests.’

Some of the policies are just plain odd:

‘Vehicles over 25 years old will be exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty to help protect the motor industry and our classic and historical vehicles’

Well, it’s a bit of an election winner isn’t it? The classic car vote is huge among the rank and file islamophobes out there…

‘UKIP will not allow new housing to strip our nation of prime agricultural land. This must be kept for its primary purpose, creating a secure food supply for Britain and for export.’

Yet while trying to preserve ‘our green and pleasant land’ those crazy KIPPERS are very much pro-fracking:

‘UKIP supports the development of shale gas, provided safeguards are in place to protect local communities and the environment.No energy extraction technology is perfectly safe, but shale gas operations in the USA for instance, where tens of thousands of shale wells have been drilled and fracked over five decades, have proved remarkably unproblematic.’

Really? From the so called ‘Common Sense Party’ I surprised to see them openly flaunting these arse-backwards measures which would increase problem drinking and it’s associated issues and pushing tobacco back towards the mainstream. Obviously they are against decriminalisation of illegal drugs and keen to keep the war on drugs going whilst pandering to big tobacco and alcohol.

Take the various measures involving the armed forces; good old UKIP looking after Our Boys…

‘We will guarantee the offer of a job in the police service, prison service or border force for anyone who has served in the Armed Forces for a minimum of 12 years. This policy will also help meet our pledge to fund an additional 6,000 full time positions across these three organisations. We will secure our borders, get more police on the streets, have safer prisons and honour the Military Covenant.’

I look forward to coppers with pre-existing PTSD roaming the streets engaging with the aggressively alcohol impaired. I understand there is a need to look after returning troops but guaranteed jobs? Interestingly the manifesto acknowledges the detrimental effect the involvement of the West has had in Iraq, and has stated that:

‘We have to be clear: we should stand firmly alongside our allies around the world, but cannot continue committing troops into conflict at the drop of a hat – often under-resourced – and with a veterans policy that lets down those returning from the horrors of war.’

So UKIP are going to increase the Armed Forces, but not commit them into conflict as often? So what exactly are these troops going to be doing while waiting for their guaranteed job after 12 years?

Occasionally you find a real diamond in the muck, Duncan Matthews step forward:

One of the great things I’ve been exposed to by moving to a new locale is the huge amount of really innovative street art.

Yes, there is a degree of wading through a selection of laneways ruined with crap tags, and the possibility of attracting unwelcome attention of the sketchier denizens when walking off the beaten track with a decent camera, but this side of urban exploration is pretty rewarding over the course of a year when you consider the transient nature of street art.

Murals, stencils, wheat pastes and all manner of installations are there to be found all over the city, just try not to be disheartened with the ever pervaisive crap tags!
I know it’s easy to knock 99.9% of tags, although some may argue that many of the established artists started out tagging, in all honesty though, just how many of these teen taggers will ever progress beyond magic marker territorial pissing? My guess is around 0.1%.

Here’s a quick looks back over some favourite pieces from the last 12 months or so; many have been simply buffed over and now feature new art, the huge murals on the side of private houses are still around to be admired.

I usually shy away from the cult of celebrity, but throw in the heady combination of 4chan and media moral outrage and it was onto Usenet for a quick look at what all the fuss was about.

Fappening Roll Call

A quick 500mb download later and what do we have? A load of mostly d-list names I hadn’t heard of apart from Lawrence and Dunst. I gather Kate Upton is something to do with Sports Illustrated and swim suits, but seeing as I’m not American I don’t really give a fuck…

Was it worth 500mb of bandwidth? No.
Was it fap worthy? Not for me.

To save yourself the time and effort in downloading ‘The Fappening’ I’ll sum up what you’re missing:

Lingerie shots that could be from The Chive and explicit stuff that looks like an xtube submission, oh and a few dick pics – but these don’t get mentioned in the media outrage because misandry is somehow acceptable.

Once again we have the enviable combination of ‘Smart Phone-Dumb Person’.
Yes, I know that photostream to icloud is the default setting, but surely there has to be some realization when idly flicking through your phone that maybe, just maybe, that the shiny cloud where all your other photos and videos live isn’t the place for pictures that wouldn’t seem out of place on ‘Frosted Faces’?

It’s great to see celebrity lawyers sabre rattling and threatening prosecution for anyone sharing the images; but as always Google is your friend:

Yes it’s embarrassing, but to see the FBI getting involved? You’d think they’d have more pressing domestic issues to concern them rather than some embarrassed actresses? It’s not as if the Bureau would be getting stuck in if it was you or I with the missing photos is it?

Another valid point when it comes to the involvement of government agencies are the allegations from Edward Snowden that the NSA routinely passed around nudes lifted from Joe and Jane Public’s electronic communications.

Where it starts to become a little unstuck for me is @ScottMendelson from Forbes magazine who started brandishing around the phrase ‘sex crime’ in relation to this hack.

Really? A sex crime? Get a fucking grip man!

A close up cell-phone photo of any of these starlets’ immaculately waxed boxes that happened to be stolen online is not in the same league, or even the same fucking sport as, for instance, the shocking child trafficking in Rotherham or the rapeyness that seems to be popular in India.

To call this phone hack a sex crime is an insult to true victims of sexual assault.

If you seriously think that a leaked 30 second video clip of Upton being fucked is on par with, say AN ACTUAL RAPE, then you seriously need to take a step back from your outraged ‘white knight’ stance, and take a walk to your nearest store and buy yourself a fucking clue, because you clearly don’t understand the gravity of the comparisons you choose to make despite your seemly expert stance on ‘rape culture’.

It was a novel departure when Lawrence herself weighed in on the outrage, a week or so after Sir Lancelot from Forbes stuck his oar into the muddy river of sexual assault.

Surprise surprise. She reckons the theft is a ‘sexual assault’ now. I’d love to say I’m surprised, but Jennifer; please take a step back and think about what you’re saying, and if you’re too self absorbed to understand what your grown-up words actually imply, then please check with your publicist before you alienate real victims.

The old quest ‘in search of store bought’ rears it’s head once again; now I’ve been trying to nail down a decent chewy cookie recipe for a while with limited success. This beauty I found on (I think) allrecipes.com is right on the money.

The recipe claims to be a clone of Subway Cookies and fuck my old boots it’s absolutely legit!
Get stuck in and enjoy…

Now if you fancy triple choc chip I recommend the following modifications to the above ingredients:

2/3 cup cocoa powder

180g butter

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup white chocolate chips

Choc Chip and Triple Choc

If you choose to substitute M&M’s or Smarties for choc-chips I humbly suggest to use the mini versions – I found that full sized sweets caused the cookies to spread a bit too much for my liking.

What else can you do with this dough? Apart from delicious single cookies, the dough will also lend itself to the Kiwi Subway variant of the the Cookie Pie, or you could use it to make a base layer of a slutty brownie.

A thriving local music scene means a few things; inching ever closer to permanent hearing loss, expanded horizons and an empty bank account.

Many of the smaller venues attract those who can be a touch creative with a Sharpie.
Street art doesn’t always have to be an awesome mural on the side of a building, but we’re not talking the pervasive crap tags, oh no, here I’m going to focus on those writers who have a message, even if it is a veiny cock…

Ah, LootCrate, we meet again. Have you upped your game to meet the ‘three strikes and out’ challenge?

May’s Crate

Legend Of Zelda shirt

The Zelda Shirt

There’s been a lot of love for this item online, but sadly not from me.
Having never owned a Nintendo console or indeed played any of the associated franchises, this one’s a bit of a dud.
However, I did need a cheesecloth substitute for filtering some ‘ahem’ herbal butter and this shirt did the job nicely:

Ready to strain that herbal butter!

It’ll wash out yeah?

Nah, that won’t wash out…

I’m sure there’s probably some requirement for me to hand in my gamer credentials at this point, but I’ve always veered towards the more adult titles found on the PC or Xbox; I guess having not played Mario Cart with a group of herbally impaired friends might also damage my stoner credentials as well, but I digress.

Verdict: Recycled!

Minecraft hanger.

Although I’m late to the Minecraft party, this is pretty nifty, and will find a home near my desk.

Minecraft packaging

Minecraft hanger – not bad!

Verdict: Pretty good!

Adventure Time.

I hadn’t heard of Adventure time until now, so I’m going to have to treat this on purely face value.

The box is quite nice and I’m sure could be upcycled into some kind of storage for small items, but what of the figure?

After a bit of googling it turns out I’ve got ‘Cake’ who is a ginger and white cat, well that’s a result for me as a huge cat lover, so I guess Cake has avoided a trip to the bin, and will end up on a shelf with other associated feline ephemera in my house.Verdict: A surprise keeper!

Adventure Time box

Cake

The rest of the items however were pretty much nonstarters as they required the Wikipedia to find out what the hell they were.

Zelda Keyring

Hmmm. Won’t even be breaking the shrink-wrap on this shite.

Stickers can go in the recycling?

Verdict: In the bin!

I did say I’d give Loot Crate three strikes, but seeing as all the hints relating to the next offering points towards Transformers which I loathe, so I’m going to call it a day. The folks at Loot Crate make it easy to resume an account, so I may give it another chance if a tempting theme crops up.

I’m tempted to rail against the Transformers franchise, so take this onboard – the CGI wank-fest, waste of bandwidth had two redeeming features:

As I have more than a passing interest in gaming and geek culture I took the plunge and signed up for Loot Crate.
Looking over previous crates it would appear that $30 a month may well yield some fun items, so repeat after me the Loot Crate mantra of ‘document/share/enjoy‘ and I’ll get started.

In the words of detective Mills from se7en when faced with John Doe’s last act, what’s in the box?

Well, all in all, a shit load of disappointment, my $30 produced the following in my mailbox:

Elder Scrolls Nord plastic figure

Game of Thrones random mini figure

d20 stress ball

d20

Dragon Jerky

Dragon Slayer dog tags

Dragon Shield screen-wipe

Elder Scrolls Online plastic Nord figure.
A Nord? Fantastic – a really shitty looking cartoony Nord. Of all the possible ES creations we get a Nord; which quite frankly is stretching the dragon theme.

The really poor Nord figure.

Verdict? In the bin.

Game of Thrones mini plastic figure.
Not too bad, but I end up with a dire wolf out of the 22 really good looking figures. I suppose it’s a 1 in 24 chance of getting something decent and I was unlucky.